I like the episodes where he has more than one companion. Maybe that's why I miss the Ponds. This season just isn't doing it for me. I thought Clara would be a great companion but she's just "Meh". Yeah she's hot, but what are better: the Leela episodes of the 4th Doctor or the Sarah Jane episodes? A hotter companion does not equal betters shows. I went back and watched some great episodes from Seasons 5 and 6 with the Ponds and River Song. Episodes like "The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang", "The Impossible Astronaut", "Day of the Moon", "A Good Man Goes to War". These episodes are epic and incredible. What have we gotten this season? The universe saved by a leaf, The Doctor in Das Boot, The Doctor in Ghostbusters, and Salvage Men on a Tardis. I'm not the only one who feels this way, that the season is meh. Look at the BBC ratings someone posted last week. The show is headed down fast. It's bleeding viewers:

They need to find a way to bring the Ponds back....although they won't. Was it ever explained how the Ponds saw their future selves in the future in "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood" if their future selves are stuck in the past? Or will that paradox just go down the memory hole?

Walker:I like the episodes where he has more than one companion. Maybe that's why I miss the Ponds. This season just isn't doing it for me. I thought Clara would be a great companion but she's just "Meh". Yeah she's hot, but what are better: the Leela episodes of the 4th Doctor or the Sarah Jane episodes? A hotter companion does not equal betters shows. I went back and watched some great episodes from Seasons 5 and 6 with the Ponds and River Song. Episodes like "The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang", "The Impossible Astronaut", "Day of the Moon", "A Good Man Goes to War". These episodes are epic and incredible. What have we gotten this season? The universe saved by a leaf, The Doctor in Das Boot, The Doctor in Ghostbusters, and Salvage Men on a Tardis. I'm not the only one who feels this way, that the season is meh. Look at the BBC ratings someone posted last week. The show is headed down fast. It's bleeding viewers:

They need to find a way to bring the Ponds back....although they won't. Was it ever explained how the Ponds saw their future selves in the future in "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood" if their future selves are stuck in the past? Or will that paradox just go down the memory hole?

You are incorrect sir about the numbers.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS - 4.9 million (overnight) TBC (final figure)Hide - 5 million (overnight) 6.61 million (final figure)Cold War - 5.7 million (overnight) 7.37 million (final figure)The Rings of Akhaten - 5.5 million (overnight) 7.45 million (final figure)The Bells of Saint John - 6.18 million (overnight) 8.44 million (final figure)The Snowmen - 7.6 million (overnight) 9.87 million (final figure)The Angels Take Manhattan - 5.9 million (overnight) 7.82 million (final figure)The Power of Three - 5.5 million (overnight) 7.67 million (final figure)A Town Called Mercy - 6.6 million (overnight) 8.42 million (final figure)Dinosaurs on a Spaceship - 5.5 million (overnight) 7.57 million (final figure)Asylum of the Daleks - 6.4 million (overnight) 8.3 million (final figure)

The overnight does not include DVR and iPlayer figures. The final number doesn't include iTunes downloads.

And the point of The future ponds showing up to see their past selves was to show that time could be changed...future Rory was no longer there.

Metalupis:crotchgrabber: Just from seeing the threads about Dr Who and hearing some people talk it up I'm quite intrigued. But I have never seen one minute of the show. Ever. How, and where should I start?

If possible start with the begining of the new series, Christopher Eckleston (spelling may be off there) made a great Doctor

crotchgrabber:Metalupis: crotchgrabber: Just from seeing the threads about Dr Who and hearing some people talk it up I'm quite intrigued. But I have never seen one minute of the show. Ever. How, and where should I start?

If possible start with the begining of the new series, Christopher Eckleston (spelling may be off there) made a great Doctor

Thanks! Is that the 2005 season?

It is on Netflix streaming, but be careful you don't choose the classic episodes by mistake. Not that there is anything wrong with them-outside of a low budget.

But if you're curious, do check out the First Doctors episode The Aztecs.

crotchgrabber:Metalupis: crotchgrabber: Just from seeing the threads about Dr Who and hearing some people talk it up I'm quite intrigued. But I have never seen one minute of the show. Ever. How, and where should I start?

If possible start with the begining of the new series, Christopher Eckleston (spelling may be off there) made a great Doctor

Darth_Lukecash:crotchgrabber: Metalupis: crotchgrabber: Just from seeing the threads about Dr Who and hearing some people talk it up I'm quite intrigued. But I have never seen one minute of the show. Ever. How, and where should I start?

If possible start with the begining of the new series, Christopher Eckleston (spelling may be off there) made a great Doctor

Thanks! Is that the 2005 season?It is on Netflix streaming, but be careful you don't choose the classic episodes by mistake. Not that there is anything wrong with them-outside of a low budget.

But if you're curious, do check out the First Doctors episode The Aztecs.

Netflix Canada doesn't have much Doctor Who - just a sample from Doctors 2 and 4 I think (and "The Three Doctors -BLAH"). I had to buy my Doctor Who from XBOX LIVE VIDEO (also is Zune), and learned an important thing - when they fark up and cut off your Live Gold account, they take away your ability to watch the videos even on PC because they completely suspend the Microsoft account.

I really enjoyed this episode. Not so much Doctor (at first). Even less Clara (at first). Lots of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax (all three excellent in small doses). Diana Rigg and her daughter were wonderful, Gatiss's script seemed pretty tight, and the story gets wrapped up in a satisfactory way.

Yeah. I think this is easily the best one this season. Or at least this half of the season. I think it highlights the pacing issue that's been hitting the series pretty badly the last few seasons: they're writing the story like it's 4 acts, and then trying to fit it into a more standard 3-act hour long program.

The old serials were paced in four acts, mostly. One of them would feel like it was filler (because it was). What they've generally been doing in the new seasons is keeping the filler act and then short-changing the climax. That's a terribly stupid way to pace stories, and it results in muddled stories where the mechanisms of the resolution were pretty much just hand-waving.

In this episode, they took the "filler" act, compressed it into a brief flashback, and used that time to give us a nice, action-y climax. By spending as much time as we did with the Victorian Trio, we actually got some nice moments.

I predict we haven't seen the last of Thomas Thomas, or as I like to call him, "GPS".

Also, when the Doctor was acting... ahem... woodenly, did anyone else feel like they were watching Peter Davidson? I suspect it was intentional, since they made a callback to Teegan.

Walker:I like the episodes where he has more than one companion. Maybe that's why I miss the Ponds. This season just isn't doing it for me. I thought Clara would be a great companion but she's just "Meh". Yeah she's hot, but what are better: the Leela episodes of the 4th Doctor or the Sarah Jane episodes?

I loved the Tom Tom joke. When he first popped up I thought "He sounds like a GPS." then he sat next to Straxx and said he was Thomas Thomas. Then I had to pause it to explain to my wife why I was laughing. I also had to explain to my wife the Tegan reference at the start.

The episode was better than I was expecting. I'm not a huge fan of the Madam and Jenny, but this episode was great.

I've been looking forward to the next episode ever since I saw the clip with the Doctor being assimilated...err...converted with that stuff on his face. Having the kids there might be a bad part, but Clara seeing the picture of the dead Clara will pretty much mean that the Doctor will have some explaining to do next episode, and since there is what, two episodes left, that means that this story line has to be concluded soon. I don't want this to be a lingering question after Christmas.

That joke was so bad it actually physically hurt. Even before he said his name.

I did not get this until now. Unfortunately, now I'm asuming that I read waaaaaay too much into the character in thinking that there was something off about him and it would come back later.

I've liekd the recent episodes, but this was easily the best of them. Bells was a good "starting companion" episode, JttCotT (wow, that isn't much shorter/easier when abbreviated) was awesome as a long-term watcher, but this one checked all the boxes and still managed to be unexpected/out of trope.

t3knomanser:Also, when the Doctor was acting... ahem... woodenly, did anyone else feel like they were watching Peter Davidson? I suspect it was intentional, since they made a callback to Teegan.

Every episode so far has had something that calls back to a previous Doctor, if only a reference or idea.

Rings of Akhaten: 1st Doctor - The Doctor mentions bringing Susan there long ago.Cold War: 2nd Doctor - HADS and the Ice WarriorHide: 3rd Doctor - the crystal from Metebelis IIIJourney to the Center of the Tardis: 4th Doctor - the interior of the Tardis (including the glimpse of the pool) and the Eye of Harmony

I hadn't noticed that they're counting up. Since the next episode is at an amusement park, I'm going to guess that we'll see a motley coat that evokes the 6th doctor's, but that might be a bit too on the nose- watch out for something that evokes the cat pin.

crotchgrabber:Just from seeing the threads about Dr Who and hearing some people talk it up I'm quite intrigued. But I have never seen one minute of the show. Ever. How, and where should I start?

As a Dr. Who fanatic, I'd recommend beginning with the first episodes. Watch the very first one, the next episodes are a bit meh, but then look for the next series 'The Daleks'. This will give you a grasp of who the Dr is and what he is famous for--being an Aesop crow and finding cunning ways to thwart evil without using weapons.

As far as later episodes are concerned, my favorite episode is 'The Girl Who Waited' (it has time/space paradox thingies), the best acting is probably in Dr. Who: A Christmas Carol, and what will get you hooked is 'A Good Man Goes to War' and 'The Impossible Astronaut'--those episodes will show you what all the Dr. has seen and faced.

The neat element of Dr Who is that, with a machine which can travel through Time And Relative Dimension In Space, anywhere and anything and anytime is possible, from alien planets, to the end of the universe, to alternate realities and void space, to the nexus of time and space, onto a pirate ship in the middle ages, crashing through Hitler's window, getting in a car chase, famous locales around the Earth, a planet-sized library, an asylum for the most dangerous race ever created, an early episode set in an antimatter universe, a bubble universe where time machines go to die, pocket dimensions that should not exist, and places far more exciting than this humdrum list.

angrymacface:t3knomanser: Also, when the Doctor was acting... ahem... woodenly, did anyone else feel like they were watching Peter Davidson? I suspect it was intentional, since they made a callback to Teegan.

Every episode so far has had something that calls back to a previous Doctor, if only a reference or idea.

Rings of Akhaten: 1st Doctor - The Doctor mentions bringing Susan there long ago.Cold War: 2nd Doctor - HADS and the Ice WarriorHide: 3rd Doctor - the crystal from Metebelis IIIJourney to the Center of the Tardis: 4th Doctor - the interior of the Tardis (including the glimpse of the pool) and the Eye of Harmony

Journey to the Center of the TARDIS also had the Seventh Doctor's umbrella.